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Update Device Styles automatically in current drawing?

7 REPLIES 7
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Message 1 of 8
kohl
298 Views, 7 Replies

Update Device Styles automatically in current drawing?

Hello,

We have modified our Electrical devices drawing to resolve some issues as well as added\deleted some devices. Our problem is that if a drawing that was started before the modifications were made are not affected by the changes because the style of the devices that were modified are not automatically updated when you insert the same device style?

For example we modified the square junction box system from general to power & lighting so that we can add power amounts to it for circuiting.

The changes were made to the drawing that contains the square junction box. If you bring in the square junction box in a new drawing it works fine but if you bring in the same device into a drawing that has the same device before it was modified the newly inserted device takes on the properties of the device in the current drawing.

We tried to erasing all of the square junction boxes in the drawing and purging that specified style from the Style manager in the drawing but it will not let us. So the only way to make it work is to change the devices property in the Style manager of the current drawing?

I am sorry this is so long but it is very frustrating. There has to be a way around doing this?

Please help.
7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: kohl

What you need to do is overwrite the existing Device Style Definitions in your drawings with your new Device styles. You can do this in Style Manager. To overwrite the device styles, follow these steps.

1. Open both your existing drawing and a drawing that contains your new styles (most likely your source dwg in your content folders).

2. Open Style Manager. You should see that both the files are listed on the left pane of the window.

3. Navigate to your Electrical Device Styles in you drawing with the new styles. They're located at Electrical Devices -> Device Styles.

4. Select the styles that you need to update. Drag and drop the styles into your existing drawing.

5. When prompted that the styles already exist in the drawing, choose to overwrite the existing styles.

This process should update all of your devices. You can do this sort of procedure with a lot of style-based items, so keep it in mind in the future.

Cheers,
Kyle B
ABS Product Support


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 3 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: kohl

Kyle,

I havn't tested it yet but it just occured to me, is style manager smart
enough to also overwrite any existing block definitions used in styles with
block definitions from the new drawing, or would one have to redefine any
changed blocked as well?

-Chris

wrote in message news:5077214@discussion.autodesk.com...
What you need to do is overwrite the existing Device Style Definitions in
your drawings with your new Device styles. You can do this in Style
Manager. To overwrite the device styles, follow these steps.

1. Open both your existing drawing and a drawing that contains your new
styles (most likely your source dwg in your content folders).

2. Open Style Manager. You should see that both the files are listed on
the left pane of the window.

3. Navigate to your Electrical Device Styles in you drawing with the new
styles. They're located at Electrical Devices -> Device Styles.

4. Select the styles that you need to update. Drag and drop the styles
into your existing drawing.

5. When prompted that the styles already exist in the drawing, choose to
overwrite the existing styles.

This process should update all of your devices. You can do this sort of
procedure with a lot of style-based items, so keep it in mind in the future.

Cheers,
Kyle B
ABS Product Support
Message 4 of 8
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: kohl

Chris,
When I did a quick test, the block definitions were updated as well.

Let me know if you have any problems.

Kyle


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 5 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: kohl

Very nice...thanks.

wrote in message news:5077452@discussion.autodesk.com...
Chris,
When I did a quick test, the block definitions were updated as well.

Let me know if you have any problems.

Kyle
Message 6 of 8
kohl
in reply to: kohl

Kyle,

I tried using this procedure to update layer key styles in existing drawings and unfortunately the objects in the existing drawing were not updated with the new layer colors? If you go to the style manager of the existing drawing the layer keys were updated correctly with the new colors but the objects in the drawing remain unchanged.

Even if I erase the objects in the drawing whose layer colors were modified and re-insert them again they still come in on the old layer colors?

I appreciate any help you can provide. TY.
Message 7 of 8
Martin__Schmid
in reply to: kohl

Hi Kohl..

Modifying layer keys in layer key styles in a drawing that already has the associated layer resident has no effect, as you have found.

To enforce layer coloring after the fact in such a scenario, you need to utilize the AutoCAD Standards functionality... search in Help for more info.

HTH,
Martin Schmid
Autodesk Consulting


Martin Schmid
Product Line Manager
Mechanical Detailing and Electrical Design
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 8 of 8
tevans
in reply to: kohl

Is there any way to automate this process thru lisp or VB?

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